Martinminerva

Also Joe Lee's excellent resource website farthingshalfpennyerrors.com seems to no longer exist. It says the domain has expired. This is one massive downside of online resources compared to printed - the latter will continue to exist and be a resource for decades and more, whilst the former can vanish at the drop of a hat. Pity there doesn't seem to be some form of permanent web archiving... (or is there?)

Just can't tell from a picture that small... Maybe/Possibly...(Fingers crossed) but there is some crud around some of the letters - eg. the A of HALF, and perhaps the "P" is just a bit of crud?? I take it you don't have it in hand yet. Only a bigger picture or it in hand would be decisive.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235337607041?hash=item36cb36e781:g:NwcAAOSwXdZldX8~&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAAwFSfkSwmQd1lxgOL8dW6twnMTiiW%2FSFQKPD5OhTwr5A1IXBmumkWEr5iDSUmW83wSTsJlm%2BnEfhJI6nLgOXwtfhmNSwkzyD41cmmXT4fBimwAKkTvycGktFTrp3P7NyC4kAekqnvZ3v2AeZhVbLmwD4lR68Zhz4MPLl%2BU3FRAl1O997cTP18WQ2lAEA8A22Uq9dLptqp8YI8zXBaLhNa7YMmu7wC9LxmOrnrKOU394D%2BlThKBPqTIXWlZIQAlKmfYg%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR6bN7p-LYw ...because of course Victoria was famously Queen of Australia in 1931 😉

I agree - the double striking around ANG is most diagnostic (unless the DIE itself could be double entered??) of identical-ness. But both of these, if fakes are blooming good ones compared to the original post coin and its duplicates which are obvious casts with their pitted, porous and bubbly surfaces, not to mention the hole and plugging in exactly the same spots!!

And therein is the entire answer!

This just sold today - £700 for a worthless coin in a holder with PL66 on it. How it got this grade and how it achieved £700 beggars belief. https://auction.royalmint.com/lot-details/index/catalog/41/lot/3166 I despair... "dark toning" my ar*e. It's tarnish, corrosion or even rust to me! Their blurb also states : "Although 158 examples of the coin have been graded by PCGS only 3 could be considered better than this. " well, my own polished die 1960 is unworn, bright, untarnished and unscratched and for me eminently better, retaining its prooflike status. And it cost me just ten quid. I know which I prefer to own, but, yes, I collect coins, not American, random, crazy opinions. I bet a quick trawl of internet / ebay could find many that are better. Subjective, yes, but in what way isn't PCGS subjective??

With the splits in the outer and the copper core showing through, this appears to be a contemporary copy/forgery which would have been clad in a more precious metal but with a base core to resemble a full piece. As long as there has been currency there has been forgery!!

Yes, F763 (strictly, Gouby A+b or Freeman 1**+B) for me as well, but still a jolly nice one!

I believe it might do, although the obverse die clash marks on mine are at a much earlier stage and barely started, but that would be consistent with evolving die damage. But it does suggest at least two obverse dies were used as mine has no die crack through the A and minimal die clash marks, whilst the two pictured above have very developed, but different, die damage.

... And now it's been taken down by the seller due to "an error in the listing". Some error!!

You beat me to it, Jerry! I was just about to alert forum members to its relisting.

Not a reliable indicator - my 1860 2+C has no hint of this die crack. So, either more than one pair of dies used (possible for an R17 scarcity) or the crack evolved over time (more likely), or more than one obverse 2 die used with the reverse C die (most likely).

The dolphin and the capital Omicron and Lambda (ΟΛ) are all associated with the Greek colony of Olbia, on the Black Sea coast (modern day Ukraine, I think), but do not have any reference books on Greek coins so can't tell you any more than that, but sure someone with more knowledge of ancient coins and denominations could. As copper123 says though, it might well not be genuine - lots of copies exist of "ancient" coins, both very modern and somewhat older.

Likewise. Really doesn't look like a proof to me - the weak strike around shield and first digit of date would seem anomalous for a proof. But proofs are notoriously hard to photograph, so may look much better in hand... As Rob says: Easiest way is comparing a known currency piece with a claimed proof and then look for reasons why it isn't one rather than saying it is better, so must be one.

If by any chance you mean this one, there is NO WAY that's a proof! Pitted and cleaned and maybe lacquered would be my conclusion... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/335065527190?hash=item4e03763396:g:3IgAAOSwksdlHtKc Odd that it's been re-listed too. Also argues against it... If it's not that one, forgive me! I was intrigued by your post and trawled ebay to see what "proofs" there were in Victorian farthings, but to no avail.

Nothing. Coin collectors like the circular bits of metal. These other people like a square piece of plastic with an arbitrary number printed on it. Two completely different sets of people. Perhaps some enterprising individual could separate the two camps fully by just issuing bits of plastic without anything in them!! 😉

Thought so!

If your lot and auction numbers are correct, they were halfcrowns, not sixpences...

Would suggest either a contemporary counterfeit or significant movement within the die as it was struck - signs of double strike round the GEO especially. Does the reverse look odd at all? Picture of that might help...

I must say that I too when it comes to things technological very much subscribe to the "if (now!) things are working, leave it alone!" school of thought. 😀

Brilliant! It all works again - secure and the page links work. Thanks for sorting out so swiftly! Cheers!

@Chris Perkins In my address bar, the prefix is already https and that leads to the warning of not fully secure and the page selection issues. I can manually change to just http but then the whole site is not at all secure, says the warning. Your predecimal shopfront is fine and secure. Is there a problem with the forum's security certificate?? But I am not at all knowledgeable about these things. All I know is that it stopped working properly a couple of weeks ago, and the issue affects all users in terms of security but only Chrome users in terms of page selection. Anything that can be done? In this day and age of hacking etc, I am very reluctant to use an insecure site! Thanks if you can resolve!

Exactly as Rob and Zo Arms report above, the issue is also affecting me, rendering the site pretty much unusable. It is a site security issue which Chrome is picking up (it gives a warning about the site not being fully secure and so one should not enter any sensitive information like passwords etc - bit hard to log on, then!) - and blocking any attempt to go to different pages. Other browsers do allow page access, but the security issue is still present. Please can someone fix things?! @TomGoodheart or @Chris Perkins perhaps?

Not quite correct. Date spacings vary on both reverses and are not positive identifiers (see screenshot of Richard's site below) and I have actually seen three spacings - narrowish and properly wide as per Richard's pictures and even narrower as per your comparison one! (Your new find is the same as Richard's first pic - narrowish with 0 just to right of bead) The true identifier is the lack of the extra line in the shield for A# (also in Richard's screenshot) as well as the flag pole thing. But yes, yours is indeed a no-knot 1* plus A# - well found! It is known on circulation specimens as well as proofs, but don't yet know how rare it is, but suspect quite rare indeed!

All the more reason for a fully revamped Freeman (which could cross reference Gouby and Satin) !